Kate Bush to release a ‘single’ from her Before The Dawn live album

In a near-pointless exercise, Kate Bush is to release a digital-only single of the live version of And Dream Of Sheep as featured on the forthcoming Before The Dawn album.
The song is very beautiful and is the first track on The Ninth Wave (side two of 1985’s Hounds Of Love). It was sung live by Kate while in a floatation tank (see main image above) in a filmed sequence shown at the beginning of the middle section of the live show.

This track will be released this coming Friday, but putting aside the PR aspect, it’s hard to understand the point of issuing this as a single, if it’s just a digital download. Surely no one waiting for the physical product is going to bother paying 99p for an MP3 and even if digital does happen to be your thang, then the song “will be sent automatically to anyone who has pre-ordered Before the Dawn from iTunes” anyway! The demand for this is surely microscopic.

On the other hand, if Kate had decided to do this properly – a physical single (CD and/or vinyl), new artwork, some audio unavailable elsewhere (perhaps some alternate versions of a few tracks on Before The Dawn) – then there certainly would have been some demand. Kate joins the likes of Duran Duran in the can’t-be-bothered-to-issue-physical-singles club, while New Order and the Pet Shop Boys continue to demonstrate that they understand the mindset (and demographic) of their fans and indeed appear to rather enjoy the process of putting out physical single releases.

And Dream Of Sheep is ‘out’ on 18 November. Before The Dawn is released a week later on 25 November 2016.

60 responses to Kate Bush to release a ‘single’ from her Before The Dawn live album

Agreed….I cannot understand the reasons for “releasing” this, nor for anyone buying it..!
The release or non-release of a DVD seems to be the burning question – I hope the BBC interview deals with it one way or the other….

I’ ve had for a long theory, that she will not release concert video after all, because of vanity reasons. She has been on the heavier side for quite long. When was the last time she performed personally in a video promoting single and album?

Doesn’t this just amount to releasing it a week in advance for radio airplay as a promotional tool for the album, with the option for anyone with more of a passing interest to download it (i.e. curious teenagers)?

I wondered if it might become available for those of us with Amazon pre-orders to download in advance as well – a nice preview if so – but there’s no suggestion of Autorip linking to the cd version at the moment so maybe not.

Perhaps the problem relates to calling this a single when this term might have evolved to mean two different things to two different demographics (an individual lead/promo track to download for a few pence vs a physical item with accompanying added value b-side/s etc). Maybe these sort of things should be called ‘promotional downloads’ rather than singles as that name was already taken.

Bingo! I’d expect there’s an element of chart eligibility (even though as pointed out it’s unlikely to matter) and an element of going through the motions from a PR point of view – designating the track as a single in the hope of a little radio play.

Makes no difference. If a digital track sells enough or is streamed enough times to make the charts, then it will make the charts. It’s nothing new – digital only singles have been used as a promotional tool for years now and like others have said, there’s a good chance it’ll pick up air time (especially on Radio 2) because it’s been designated as a single release. I don’t see what all the drama is about to be honest but worth keeping eye on eBay in case physical promo CDs have been produced and circulated to the media.

This is true. But while singles have always been ‘promotional’ in nature, in the past at least they incentivised you to buy them, with remixes, B-sides and no end of special editions. It’s the lack of effort that I object to, mainly.

I have a feeling that the death of singles in their physical format is a labels’ decision. Almost every act release digital only singles these days, most of the times the single track without any additional content. As a collector of CD singles from my 4/5 fav bands that’s been a very disappointing trend in the last decade or so.

Oh, that’s a shame, the water tank image lends itself to a rather beautiful 10″ Picture Disc a la Lake Tahoe. Particularly if the b-side was a take from an alternate night of something like Hounds, Joanni or KOTM.

Well, now that I have recovered the power of speech – having being rendered speech-less on reading this announcement – I do wonder if this ‘single’ release is principally because there already is a video made to promote it?? In fact, could not the video be the first official release from the filmed show? There could be some method in the Bush madness here……

However, I was under the impression that ‘KOTM’ was the already available single from this album, and has proved to be about as popular as ‘Wild Man’ was – both of course being described no doubt as ‘eagerly awaited’……..

Unless I’m missing something Sting’s album is available as
– CD
– CD+DVD
– Vinyl
I presume you can add some kind of streaming format to that too.
Not sure I would consider that an excess of formats and there does not seem to be much in the way of exclusive material that would tempt a fan to splash out money on multiple formats.

Sad decision for real, she could even choose to use the stunning water picture above and make this a runaway hit. Truly disappointing, and all hail Pet Shop Boys for the reason stated above.
Also still hoping for the LP price to go down again, after it jumped up on amazon. Really too expensive at 60£.

Heard the promotion snippets for Sundays KB interview on R6 today and it pleasingly amazes me that a 58 year old, with more than respectable chart success is getting coverage on an ‘alternative’ radio channel in 2016. This single is 100% about getting the PR message out to the other channels about BTD but is utterly pointless for long term fans.

Its a real shame that Kate Bush was so goddess like in terms of looks in her early days as it seems to allow people to body shame, criticise a 50 year old woman for looking her age and use it to justify their childlike annoyance over her not (yet) releasing live film which they appear to think is their god given right.

Releasing this track just promotes the album as much as the BBC interview and exclusive play of the Ninth Wave section (ie CD2) – its not a real single in the conventional sense

Whilst I agree with you about body shaming etc it is obvious that Kate does not seem to be, comfortable shall we say, with how she now looks.
In the thick book/programme that was for sale at the show, there are only about three pics of Kate in the whole book, and each of them is photoshopped into oblivion with Kate looking nothing like usual self, on one pic her whole chin has dissapeared.. Kate controls every single aspect of her career so she obviously gave her approval for the use of these pics.
It is no secret that Kate no longer likes to appear in her own videos, and the very few official pics that she has released since Ariel have been heavily airbrushed.
Given all of this I can’t understand why she went to the huge expense of filming the show, and it would have been a huge expense as there was a several camera set up etc.
I still hope that Kate releases the film, but if she chooses not to then hey….

It’s hard for established acts to have hits anymore. Pet Shop Boys do release physical singles but at the hefty price of £6.99. And they still don’t get a hit. If the purpose of this download release from Kate is to get airplay on Radio 2 to help sell the album, then it has a purpose. It’s not really meant for anyone to actually buy.

I think that’s the norm though, these days. I don’t like it any more than you do but downloading and then streaming changed everything. Modern deluxe albums contain bonus tracks that in the old days would have been b-sides. I wish PSBs had done that instead of releasing three CD singles at £6.99 each. A deluxe album with the exclusive tracks from those singles included as bonuses would have been much easier on the pocket!

I know CD singles aren’t cheap anymore, but I still like the process of buying them and ‘waiting for the next single’. I know this only applies to a tiny selection of artists now (New Order, PSB etc.) but it’s a little thread back to the past…

Those “deluxe” albums that go on and on, trickling down to a load of sub-standard tracks that might have made interesting b-sides but just end up diluting the album experience: I can’t stand them. Give me a Super or an Electric any day, a proper album with no mucking about.

I agree this ‘single’ (format/timing/content) is disorienting in our traditional experience. But taken in a 2016 vacuum, it may be a logical if completely uncreative, simple, and timid action towards promoting the upcoming release.

I can’t imagine the artist (this artist) cares one solitary whit about this one way or the other. Would be shocked if KB ever rates it a mention of any kind. Nothing to get hung up about, just one of those little random inoffensive insignificant clauses in the fine print of the contract, apparently. I sincerely doubt any further real thought or planning behind it. Non-event.

Instant download songs with preorders are pointless as they are illegible to chart, if Madonna’s Give Me All Your Luvin was an instant download with the preorder of MDNA it would have charted a lot higher, the official charts changed the rules around the time of that release.

With this Kate Bush song being available then it may get some stream numbers which now contribute to the charts.

I am a bit surprised when I see all the hostility towards this ‘single’ release.

It is clearly just a way to reach out beyond the hardcore fans and people that frequent message boards and sites like this.

I bet there are a lot of people out there who will be interested in Before The Dawn that does not fit into the traditional music nerd bracket and probably won’t be aware of the release at all. This is a way to reach some of them – casual fans are people too, you know.

That’s the other thing, streaming. Not only are CD singles rare but now streaming seems to have taken over from downloading. I read that Robbie Williams’ current single only made number 57 in the singles chart, but in the download chart reached number 13. That means he was pushed down by songs that were merely streamed. He has the current number one album, and a performance on X Factor couldn’t even help it. The first single from his album only reached 68 (but 23 on downloads). Kate was never a big singles act, so in this current climate I’m not surprised she’s saying “F*** you” to the singles market!

The next issue of MOJO is being trailed with an interview with Kate with the tagline “she’s nixed the DVD”. So that’s that. She also planned at one point not to be in the live show. Can imagine how that would have gone down

‘It was filmed. And it has been archived. But there are no current plans to bring out a DVD. I think that the CD is, in a way, much more representative of being at the shows than a DVD. When you’re at a live show it’s the whole experience of sitting there in an audience, you can scan the stage, choose where to look, it’s completely different from film’.

Obviously it was such a visual experience, a visual delight, it would be a shame to lose that.

‘Well, I dunno, there might be something at some point, but there’s certainly no plans at the moment. I want to very much move on and do something new’.

I agree, it is hard work being a Kate Bush fan sometimes. I saw that show and the fact is that there was simply so much going on you couldn’t possibly see all that was going on. I almost missed the tree falling into the piano, it happened in a second but if you were looking at another part of the stage you would have missed it, likewise with the puppet breaking free.
Meanwhile Kate wants to move on and do something new. I won’t be holding my breath.

It’s very sad that there’s no DVD release, very few fans managed to see the live shows. I was annoyed at how many z-list celebs managed to get tickets so they could be “papped” at the live event of the year, probably not appreciating it, whilst real fans missed out. Surely these people were getting easier access to tickets than us minions. She should put the DVD out for all the real fans that missed out. Anyway, rant over!! :-/

“There’s absolutely no plans to put DVD out (of concert series)”, said Bush herself in the BBC interview aired yesterday. Everybody can hear it for yourself for 4 weeks more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/b0833z59

She made clear it was an artistic decision thinking audio release only is better representative of the concerts than CD+DVD product. Sad to hear, but it seems, that no official video will be ever released.